September 16, 2013
II Corinthians 4:3, 4
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
In Friday’s blog I shared about Sealed From Beneath! The idea comes from Proverbs 1:20 through 33. The one who repeatedly rejects the call of the Holy Spirit to come to Christ and be saved can end up hardened to the point where he or she cannot be saved! In Proverbs 1:24, 28 and 29 the Spirit (called Wisdom here in Proverbs) says:
Because I have called and you refused…Then they will call on me, but I will
not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. Because
they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD….
Evangelist Bob Boyd preached this sermon – Sealed From Beneath! – during a week of revival meetings at First Baptist Church of Oxford, PA where I was pastoring. During the sermon, God laid on my heart to go talk to Fred, a man in his thirties who had refused a number of times to come to Christ. I responded in my mind, “Yes, I need to go talk to Fred, sometime soon.” And the Spirit of God said, “Do it now! As soon as the sermon is over!”
It was after nine o’clock when I knocked on Fred’s door. He was the only one home at the time and he was surprised to see me so late in the evening. But he welcomed me in when I told him I had to talk with him. Seated at the kitchen table, I shared with him the plan of salvation, that Jesus Christ had died on the cross to pay for our sins. He asks us to believe and receive by faith His work and Himself into our hearts and lives. I read and explained a number of scriptures called “The Roman Road” – Romans 3:10; 3:23; 5:12; 6:23 (first part); 5:8; 6:23 (second part); 10:9-13. If you follow “The Roman Road” through these scriptures – and laid out in this order – the plan of God’s salvation becomes quite clear.
Fred attentively followed along as I shared with him. Then I asked him, “Fred, would you like to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior?” His answer sent chills down my spine! “I can’t,” he said. “What do you mean, ‘I can’t’ ,” I asked? Fred replied, “I don’t know. I just can’t!” From what Bob had just been preaching an hour before, I knew both the answer and the danger Fred was in!
Without asking his permission, I started praying:
God, I know you love Fred and that Jesus died to save Him. Right now he is
in a dangerous place, having rejected Christ’s offer of salvation several times,
he has hardened his heart to the point where he says he can’t receive Jesus as
his Savior. Please, God, give him one more chance.
I knew that in II Corinthians 4:3 and 4 it says of Satan:
But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds
the god of this age [the devil] has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of
the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on
them.
So I then addressed the satanic force binding and blinding Fred:
Demon of deception and spiritual blindness, I command you in Jesus’ name to
take your hands off of Fred. Let him go! For it is written, ‘If the Son makes you
free, you shall be free indeed.’ (John 8:36).
Yes, I speak to demons and Satan himself. After all, that is the way Jesus did it when He faced the devil on the Mount of Temptation, and when He expelled demons during His ministry. After all, the Word quoted is one of the two offensive weapons listed as part of our Spiritual armor in Ephesians 6.13 through 18. The other weapon is prayer.
After I prayed and rebuked the demonic force holding him prisoner, I looked at Fred and asked again, “Will you now receive Jesus Christ as your Savior?” Fred looked me in the eye and simply said, “Yes!” He then prayed to receive Jesus Christ into his heart and life. Fred has proved over the years to be a sincere Christian, active in his Church.
Do not wait too long to heed the call of the Holy Spirit and respond to Jesus’ invitation to be saved!